What Might Have Ben
by JustAFlick
Summary: A letter from Ben to his Mama in the final hours before the most heartbreaking scene in Star Wars history. *Contains major spoilers for long story Never Will I Ever, so please read that first!*


Disclaimer: Star Wars belongs to Lucasfilm. My only profit from writing this story was awakening the force within myself! The entire story is written, so I'll be posting as quickly as I can edit. Please review, fav, or follow if it speaks to you.

Note: I debated posting this because it contains some major spoilers for my big story, "Never Will I Ever." But, I like it and whatever. ;) This is a letter written from Ben to his Mama in the hours leading up to the most heartbreaking scene of the Star Wars films.

* * *

Mother,

It is odd to write that word, but I must address you as so. One last time.

Mother.

I have tried not to think of you in the last ten years. I have failed time and again. We were close once. As close as mother and son can be, I believe. I loved you more, I think, than anyone.

It is for that reason, for the sake of that remembered love, that I write this to you now.

I don't know if you will ever see it. I think, most likely, you won't.

Soon I will cease to be your son. No matter how I have tried since I left you, I have not been able to kill him. I have not been able to stifle that feeble voice that rallies against all the atrocities I have committed. And there have been many. Too many to count, too many to atone for.

So I will not. I do not. Life, mine and others, is meaningless to me. All that exists is the Force. Whoever I have killed returned to it, just as I will one day. But at least this way, I am closer to it than most.

It was irresistible. You knew that. Before anyone else did. You saw it in me and it terrified you.

That moment. That moment will haunt me until the day I die. Which might be any day now.

When I reached for you with my little boy's voice. Mama, I said. And you pushed me away, already knowing what I was destined to become. Something horrible to you. Something you could never love.

It took me years to let go of that. Years to stop trying to mold myself back into the boy that you had loved. But, I think it was always a hopeless pursuit.

My destiny was set long before that moment. Not by the Gods, no. By him. The man you continued to love even when you stopped loving me.

Han Solo.

I do not call him father anymore. I have no father. I disown him and his useless line.

I suppose it was my one mercy. Never telling you. Never shattering the idol that he was to you.

But now, on the eve of my rebirth, I must. Some small part of me, weakening with every moment, but still so persistent, needs you to know. You have to know.

There was a future that existed once. A future where another had my fate.

I used to regret this. I used to long for that parallel destiny with every fiber of my being. I don't anymore. I accept that this is my lot, my life now, though it may never have been meant for me.

I suppose you'll wonder how I know this. As far as you knew, I never had the power to see into the future. And I don't. If I could, perhaps things would have been different. As far as I know only one user has that power. Your brother. The man I called Uncle. Luke Skywalker.

When you sent me away with him, there was a part of me that was hopeful. I believed, if anyone could keep me from this fate, if anyone could make me whole to you again, it would be your twin, my uncle, the man who had faced the Force without fear for all my young life.

But, he was a different man than I'd known. He was no longer my Uncle. In fact, when we arrived at the Academy, he wouldn't allow me to use that name anymore. It was Master now. That's what everyone called him. His pupils. The first of my crimes.

Master. He told me, as we approached, that not a one of them even knew his name.

And I, like the little fool I was, followed him blindly. I called him Master. I buried our connection. I became just another one of the sheep in his herd of misfits.

I hoped for a time that I could fit in with them, with the other sheep. On Denon, I was an outcast. I never told you. I never told him. How could I? You were golden people, beloved everywhere you went. How could I tell you your son was despised? I have considered hunting down the perpetrators of those early crimes, the boys who locked me into closets and beat me till I vomited blood, but they are insects to me now. So far beneath me, I won't waste my time.

The students at the Jedi Academy turned out to be no different. Even among them, I was an outcast. Most of them had been with the Master for years. I was dreadfully behind and too old for it. And it got even worse when they realized how powerful I was in spite of this. None of them would talk to me, take any notice of me at all. Except one.

She was the smallest and, for some strange reason, she didn't fear the black sheep.

Her name was Rey.

It was embarrassing at first. The way she'd come sit near me, when no one else would. The way she would follow me from class to class, trailing after my steps like some little terrier. But, eventually, when I realized that nothing I could do would make the rest of them care for me, I took notice of her. It was that or be completely alone.

She was a tiny thing, only six years old when I arrived. But, she was strong. Already eclipsing almost everyone at the Academy. Still they liked her. She was everyone's little sister. And the Master treated her differently than anybody else. It was only months later that I realized she didn't sleep with the rest of the girls, but rather in the Master's own quarters.

Eventually, I overhead the rumors, as I listened to the conversations I was excluded from.

They said she was his daughter. In private, she called him Papa.

It made some sense then, the bizarre connection I felt with her. The way she managed to make me love her despite my hesitations. She was my cousin. My blood. But, I didn't understand it. How could Luke have a child? Where was her mother? Why did he keep her from us?

I almost reached out to you then. I wanted to ask, to tell you. But I knew you wouldn't want to hear from me. After all, it had been so long, and I hadn't had a word from either of you.

You must have been relieved. To be alone again, with each other. No more complications. No more distractions. No more trouble.

I had always been proud of your love, of having come from such a union. But in those days, having been thrust out, deemed unworthy, I came to resent it. Now, I only pity it. Love has made you blind. Love is more destructive than the Dark Side could ever be.

Instead, I asked him. Fool that I was. Something changed in him when I asked. If I had had a friend, they would have told me he never talked about Rey. The topic was off-limits.

Luke was harder on me then. He pushed me in class, demanded more of me than any other. He didn't tell Rey not to talk to me, but I could see the way his eyes would tighten every time she did. The way yours used to when I'd tap into the Force.

I came to resent him too. The Master. He was cold and distant, purposely detaching himself from us so we wouldn't see him as a friend, so he would never get too close. He knew we were destined to be warriors. Most would be slain. Maybe he saw what I would do in one of his visions.

But Luke's hubris was unlimited. He truly believed he could control fate, bend it to his will. If there is one thing I don't regret in my warped life, it's that I proved him so very wrong.

It became my mission to push back. To find out his secret. There was even a part of me that thought you might value that. I could bring it home and lay it at your feet like some sort of offering.

The way I missed you. The way I missed him. It clawed at me, it ravaged my heart and left me raw. When the dreams started, it was a blessed relief.

Until then I had feared Darth Vader. The revelation that he was my grandfather, that I truly had monster's blood running through my veins, had frightened me to the core. I didn't want to be like that. I had only wanted to defend myself, to show the Galaxy how strong I really was.

That's what pushed me toward Gus. Toward the Supreme Leader. He was the only who thought my powers were a gift rather than a curse. No matter how you tried to hide it, I could always see the fear behind your eyes. He made me like them, he made me like myself.

I knew he edged toward the dark. But the light had only made me despise what I was. And I was young, unafraid.

He told me stories. Stories of the Sith and the battle for the Force. He had little love for the Jedi, but neither did I. All the Jedi had done was bring about a world that had forgotten about the thing that made me who I was.

He also told me about a man called Darth Vader. A dark, but powerful lord who had almost taken over, almost brought about a new order. Only to be brought down by his own children.

It was beautifully tragic. Like one of the ancient songs, but almost part of my own time.

Little did I know.

But I did now. And when Vader started visiting me in my dreams, I knew to be afraid. And I was. For a time. But he talked to me. He taught me and took notice of me in a way the Master would not. He let me call him grandfather.

He still talks to me. I am not alone. Not really.

He gave me the tools I need for my quest. He taught me how to use the power I was born with, to probe into the mind of any adversary I faced. It took practice. Years of practice. But, he taught me to be patient.

Eventually I could do it to the other students. They were weak, young, still training. I could feret out their fears and deepest desires. I could use their fears against them or dangle their desires in front of them as I chose. I mostly chose not to. I was always ruled by the whims of the women in my life. You. Dee Dee. Rey.

She had such a hold on me, that little girl. For her, I held back. For her, I kept trying, kept on the tight rope between the dark and the light. I was her favorite, out of all of them. Besides Luke.

He was strong. Stronger than anyone. His mind was guarded, a stronghold, always had been.

Do you remember? The way I could always breach both of your minds but never his?

The memories are coming fast now as I write. As if a dam has broken in my own mind.

We were all he thought about. Not Luke. Han. We were his every thought.

As I said, love is more destructive than the Force could ever be.

I couldn't break Luke. I started giving up. I wondered if it was worth it at all. Then your message came. The first in three years. Meemah gone. And the grief overwhelmed me. Not only did I mourn her, but I mourned the life she represented. It felt like it was gone forever.

That night, grandfather came to me in his full glory. He told me I was ready, that if I took hold of the blackness of my despair, it would give me the strength to discover the Master's secret.

And he was right.

We were set to leave the next morning for Naboo. Little Rey met me at the door and begged to come along. It took a Force push from Luke before she would relinquish her hold on my leg. She was still so tiny compared to me. We seemed to be growing at the same rate.

I looked down at Luke and knew my time had come.

I waited until we were in the sky, just out of the atmosphere before I struck.

He let go of the controls in complete shock, as I dove past his defenses. The ship somersaulted reminding me of a time long ago when I had learned such a trick on the Falcon.

It only reminded me of how much things had changed.

I had only one question. An innocuous one, I thought.

Who's the girl?

Instead of some strange woman, I saw you, Mama. Young and lovely, full with child. I had seen it before, in visions, in memories. But you were more beautiful than I recalled.

I remembered that night. That dreadful, horrible night. When Luke had rushed me home to meet the sister I would never know.

The terror, the abject terror, when I saw you, motionless on the bed. I thought you were dead. I still have nightmares where I shake you and shake you and you never wake up.

But these weren't my memories. They were his.

A vision of the future. A plan hatched between cowards. A crime committed in the name of love.

This fate was meant for her, Mama. Not me. Her.

Han saw it through Luke's eyes. Saw her turn to the Dark Side and then murder her brother.

So, they took her from you. The men who said they loved you.

And by trying to save me, they condemned me to a fate worse than death.

I can admit it. In these waning hours of existence. Before I give over completely. I hate him for it. I can never forgive him. And I will make him pay.

One life for another.

She was my sister. Your daughter. His. Now she belonged to Luke.

Luke who is so much more powerful than any of us knew. With a touch of his hand we all forgot, one by one, falling into line like little tin soldiers. Even Han, his co-conspirator.

How lucky to forget that you are a monster.

And so I left. I took the escape pod and careened into space having no idea where I was going. All I knew was that I couldn't go back. To the Academy. To Denon. To Naboo. To him. To you.

I would leave, disappear into the anonymous unknown. Start a new life away from it all.

But then I heard it. A little cry that cut through me like a thousand knives. It was her. My sister.

I knew it in the deepest part of me.

I almost ignored it. Remembering her older self from Luke's vision, the blackness in her eyes, the thrust of her light saber slicing through my heart.

But that heart already belonged to her. It was too late. I turned and met my fate.

I tell you this now only for honesty's sake. It doesn't matter. I have committed far worse crimes now. I have a body count a hundred times the one that is attributed to me at the Academy.

They were already gone when I arrived. Every one of my peers, struck down lying dead in the mud.

And the man who stood above them was wearing the mask of Kylo Ren. He was holding my light saber. The one I'd thought I'd lost on Karst all those years ago.

I heard grandfather's voice in my head, telling me to kill him. I resisted. I felt for the corpses at my feet, the way any lowly human might feel for another. But I was looking for her. I could feel her. I knew she was alive.

Then I turned and saw her in the arms of my first teacher. The Supreme Leader.

She was sleeping, held against his chest like a babe.

He looked at me and I knew.

He was leaving with one of us.

Kill him, grandfather said.

Which one, I didn't know.

But the black knight attacked me as his comrades stood mutely behind. So I chose. Out of instinct, out of survival. It was brutal and bloody. I barely survived. But for all his skill, the man behind my future mask was no where near as powerful as I.

I can still feel it, the way his life flowed over my hands, hot and strangely energizing. It was like making love. The same frantic rush, the same release. They call it the little death.

I turned back to the Supreme Leader, feeling invincible, feeling like I could strike him down and save us both.

But then grandfather spoke again.

Listen, he said.

Just as he had in the old days, the Supreme Leader told me a story. One final story. Of a Sith Lord who could create life. Who did so in the belly of a slave on Tattooine. You grandmother. The blood that flows through us comes from him, Darth Plagueis. It comes from the Dark Side.

You were right all along, Mama.

"You are destined to take your grandfather's rightful place," he said, "beside me. Your creator."

There can be only one.

Kill her.

Kill her before she kills you.

He trusted me. Handed her over to me and left me alone.

She looked like you.

How could I murder someone who looked like you?

The blood from my first kill dripped from my hands and told me I could.

And then I felt him. The Master. He was coming back. Summoned by the same psychic pull that had brought me here.

He would find her.

He'd protect her.

I smeared the blood across her face, her neck, her little body. I opened my mind, just once, for the last time and said one final thing to him.

Never let me find her.

Then I turned and stripped the warrior of his clothing. I knew my life was over. Had known it before turning back to Rey's cries. There would be no convincing you, not now.

You would hate me till the day you died.

I may not have killed them, but I led the Supreme Leader straight to them. He had been watching me all along, waiting for the moment the Master left them unguarded.

There was no fighting it. And I had ceased wanting to.

So now you know.

I may be a monster, but I came by it honestly.

Not from Darth Vader, but from the man you love.

Han Solo.

So forgive me, Mother.

When the day comes, I hope I no longer care. But at this moment, at my weakest ebb, I do.

I care too much.

I do what I do for you, for her, and for the boy you once loved, your Ben.


End file.
